


Erejean Week Day 6: Pirates & Sirens/Insanity

by go_Jean_or_go_home



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Erejean Week 2019, Erejean Week 2019: Day 6, Erejean Week Day 6: Pirates & Sirens/Insanity, M/M, Mermaids, Mermen, Pirates, Pirates and Sirens, Pirates of the Caribbean AU, Sea of Thieves anyone?, Sirens, merman
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-04
Updated: 2019-04-04
Packaged: 2019-11-27 03:39:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18189287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/go_Jean_or_go_home/pseuds/go_Jean_or_go_home
Summary: When a pirate captain falls into an immense debt and has to resort to sea town raids in order to try and pay it back, the last thing he or his crew imagined to find was a mythological legend with a pretty hefty price tag. But then they do, and while they initially plan on selling the damned thing off to a butcher to repay their captain's debt, the creature reveals to know the location of an even more expensive legendary item, sending everyone on a journey like never before.





	Erejean Week Day 6: Pirates & Sirens/Insanity

**Author's Note:**

> My friend, while reading this: "why are the pirates southern"
> 
> Welcome, welcome all to me and my unbelievable thirst for mermen! This here work is a WIP, so it cuts off rather awkwardly, but that'll be remedied to come. Until then, enjoy what I have so far, and please tell me what you think in the comments!
> 
> Also, Eren's a bit of a dick to start out, but they'll develop as the story progresses

Eren was in debt. _Hugely_ in debt. So much so that all of his waking energy had to be put completely to getting any money he could, be it by raiding, gambling, betting, or fighting for it. And he owed it all—every last cent of it—to one sleazy, slimey excuse of a French privateer: Levi Ackerman.

Here’s how it happened.

Eren was riding the high of his seemingly never-ending success as a new and bold pirate captain in the caribbean, but had gotten cocky in trying to raid a fancy, enormous French Royal Navy ship rather than his usual merchant vessels. The raid had started out pretty standard, with Eren and his crew swinging across to the French ship and immediately beginning to fight with the startled opposition they met. Within minutes of fighting, his crew of rough and tumble scoundrels were pounding the government hounds into ash, as others of his team snatched up any spices, fabrics, trinkets, or money they could get their grimy hands on. Eren was hooting and hollering tauntingly from the crow’s nest, waving his sword about wildly and keeping his pistol in its holster, confident that it was another day of success, and another sparkling tally on his spotless record. More free drinks at the next tavern they crashed, score.

However, lo and behold, the whole thing crashed and burned when out of nowhere, Eren found himself caught in a chokehold with the cold, metal muzzle of a pistol pressed against his temple. He’d been so caught up in his apparent victory, so easily blinded by his own arrogance that he hadn’t noticed Levi Ackerman had been nowhere in sight during the fray, and had climbed up the ratlines just to get Eren in this position. He’d been caught, and if he tried to swipe his sword behind him or reach for his own pistol, his brains would be blasted out the side of his head before he could even blink. Eren could do nothing except hope Ackerman’s finger didn’t slip on the trigger.

At the time, the jarring turn from sweet victory to pale, terrified defeat had been stunting. Eren had stood frozen as Levi raised his voice to bark over the deafening shouts and screams of the men and women below, over the gunshots and sword clangs, over the wind whipping the sails and ropes about.

“Maria’s Revenge!” The navy dog had bellowed. It took a moment for everyone to actually cease fire and look up, but once someone—whether pirate or privateer—caught a glimpse of the spectacle up in the crow’s nest, all weapons were dropped.

“If you want to see your _glorious_ captain Eren Jaeger live another day, you’d better—”

Eren hadn’t whispered what he proposed next, more talked normally, as Levi was the only one within earshot of him at this great height anyway. Eren, shaking in both fury and humiliation, had offered Levi a large sum of money to let him and his crew go. The fact that Levi paused gave him enough incentive to keep pushing it, for the only other option for he and his crew was being tried, hung, or burned as pirates before the Royal Navy.

Levi kept his pistol cocked threateningly against Eren’s temple, but cooly responded in the same, everyday volume of voice so that their crews below couldn’t hear the plotting. He firmly stated that he’d only agree for triple the amount Eren offered. Eren had balked, disbelieving that such a renowned government official would buckle to greed like the rest of them, but also at the sheer debt he’d be in if he agreed.

Debt or death were his two options, and here Eren was now, still alive and breathing and barking commands at his crew at some ungodly hour of the night, so take a wild guess which one he picked.

“Take anythin' ya kin get yer hands on!” Eren roars at his dozens of men streaming into the coastal Mexican town. They whoop and shout gleefully as they tear into houses and shops and barns, and from Eren’s spot down on the beach by their lifeboats, he can witness it all. Screams of alarm and panic rise from the men, women, and children being startlingly woken up at this late hour to find their quaint little city being ransacked. Desperate spanish prayers come from mothers as they wrap their young ones in blankets and flee their houses, and the fathers and teenagers run to surround them in their night clothes, as they are all unarmed and defenseless against Eren’s sword-toting, gun-slinging crew.

However, his focus isn’t on harming the people, rather stealing their goods. As long as the fearful residents of this cute little town kept out of their way, they’d be scathe-free. 

Eren feels himself grin as he watches his men snatch up loot, some already returning to their lifeboats with bolts of cloth, quilts, tanned animal skins, and some jars of spices, sugar, and tobacco. Fires start spilling out of windows of houses where his pirates scuffle with rowdy citizens—but they’re only a handful of houses—and the bleats and caws of frightened goats and chickens echo down the stone streets to the sandy beach where Eren stands.

It was probably a nice town during the day, Eren finds himself thinking. Although, it looked _awfully_ nicer now in the moonlight, with all its treasures being spilt like the blood of a freshly slain animal.

This was their fourth time raiding since their disaster with Levi Ackerman. After that event, Eren had begrudgingly admitted to himself that his precious reputation had suffered a bit of a dent, and so had his ship’s morale. They’ve only gone after small towns so far, for fear of another surprise defeat. All three previous raids have been bountiful, mind you, but they were easy wins from meager sources. At this rate, Eren would have enough to satisfy Levi’s debt by the time he turned fifty, and at present, he was twenty-two.

He knew they’d have to return to bigger, juicier targets eventually, but he found it in his best interests to work up from the bottom again. After all, that’s where he first started on his road to piracy.

“Ah found gin!” Came a throaty, triumphant cry of one of his pirates, running out from a house whose door was being slowly licked up by flames.

Another pirate leaps through the fiery doorway after the first one, and gives chase with a furious snarl of, “Ah found it furs’!”

“Neh ye didn’!”

“Yes ah did!”

The first one holds two bottles in both his fists, glinting against the moonlight. He gleefully jumps and dodges about the other one, teasing him with insults and mockery and sloshing around the contents of the bottles.

“Yeh can't even _grab_ at em’! Neh way they yurs’!” The first one chortles, his boots clacking against the stone street.

His buddy snarls ferociously, lunging at the gin. “I sees em furs’, so tha’ makes em _mine!_ ”

He launches into the one holding the bottles, knocking him back with bodily _thud_ , and the two start to tussle around on the inclined stone street, each trying to grab the gin from the other. A couple other men from their crew glance over at the two squabbling for the alcohol, and shake their heads with laughter, and a couple of the Mexicans standing a few distances away snicker quietly amongst themselves at the sight of the two animals.

Eren had rules on his ship. Every captain did, how else would you keep order? Well, one of his rules, which was actually a rather common rule on any given pirate ship, was: settle personal disputes on land. You had a score you wanted to settle with someone on the ship? You waited until you were on shore to sort that out. Any man or woman who dared lay an ill-meaning hand on another while on board ran the high risk of marooning, for rule breaking of any kind was strictly intollerated on Eren’s ship.

But these two raging seagulls were well on land, so Eren did nothing but lean his hip against the closest lifeboat, cross his forearms over his chest, and cackle too. The night is hot, but the sea breeze provides enough chill to cause little shivers to go down his spine. His tricorn hat is set on one of the benches inside the lifeboat he is currently resting on, letting his shaggy brown hair, golden hoops, and deep red coattails of his flashy over jacket get swept by the wind. Eren was never really one for buttoning up the damn thing, and his loose, off-white blouse is untied at the top, so a good bit of his chest and collarbones are exposed to the surprisingly chilly Caribbean night air.

This, however, did not distract him from the evening’s entertainment. The two men bashing heads over a few bottles of gin had finally staggered into range of a wall-mounted torch, and as one of them gives a particularly rough shove, they knock into the stand that holds it, and send it sailing into a glass window of some shop. Nobody is in the shop, so no one pays the fly-away torch any mind, including Eren.

Unbeknownst to everyone, the innocent little shop has a steady pile of barrels inside of it, each filled to the brim with gunpowder. And the torch, which now at the foot of the pile, has lit flames at the very bottom.

Just minutes later, the first pirate who’d grabbed the gin bottles snatches one from his rival, to rowdy cheer from the growing crowd of crew and from distant, timid, but still curious Mexican townsfolk. As the man is proudly holding up his trophy, drinking up the applause, the little shop with the gunpowder barrels _blows up_ in a sudden blinding, deafening explosion.

The two squabbling men are sent _flying_ to the ground, as is their little audience, and the wooden beams and stones that previously made up the little shop are sent careening through the sky like shooting stars. Eren—who has ducked underneath the curve of the belly of the lifeboat he was just leaning against—watches as debris plunges into the sands of the beach and ocean around him, disrupting waves and sending rivets of water into the air. The flames of those that land in water are put out instantly upon contact with the water, sizzling as smoke starts curling up towards the night sky. The flames of those that land on the beach are either smothered by the sand, or touch down with a _thunk_ while they continue to crackle and burn. Even more wreckage clatters into the nearby tidepools and in between the rocks that litter the shallow waters of this cove.

It's over as quickly as it began, and as Eren begins crawling out from under the boat, he hears the two men already barking and pointing fingers at each other, but their audience—made up of both pirate crew and Mexican civilians—are spooked and furious at the two _idiots_ for causing such a dangerous ruckus over two bottles of _gin_. Eren’s mad too; he already knows he’ll have to lash them as punishment when they get back on the ship. He's about to call everyone back to put this raid to an end, content that they've stolen all they can, but before a word can leave his lips, he abruptly stops when he hears…

… he hears something struggling among the rubble and ruin in the tidepools to his side. Something large, something slapping the shallow waters in its strained attempt to break free, something probably pinned underneath all the debris, helpless and vulnerable.

Eren is curious, and hopeful, but it _couldn't be._

Could it?

Merfolk and sirens are easily the most expensive thing anyone can catch these days. However, they're the hardest things to get a glimpse of, let alone actually _catch_ , which plays hugely into their selling price. There’s all sorts of superstitions surrounding them too, that only made them _more_ valuable, such as the unproved rumors that their tears turn into pearls, that the meat of their tails grant powers when eaten, and so on. They're the delicacy of a pirate’s wildest, wettest dreams, or really anyone who wants to get rich overnight.

The only times Eren’s ever seen one alive has been in quick, blurred flashes of hair or a fin. Mainly, however, he's seen them dead. He's taken walks down sea-facing streets where a large, intimidating man is butchering away the precious tail from the “human” half, while its captor stands by and watches with a smug, gleeful look. Eren’s seen the carnal insides of bodies before, many times in the last two years, so he's never found himself looking away at these scenes, where the lifeless, dead-eyed, eerily beautiful “human” half is chucked to the side for dogs to eat, while the butcher makes smaller fillets of the tail. It’s never particularly bothered him. The “human” half has creeped him out every time, but he always rationalizes within himself how _not_ human they are, so therefore it’s fine.

And besides, merfolk and sirens were the same damned things anyway: man-eating monsters of the deep. They were rampant in the Caribbean waters like a plague, so one less threat to humanity was doing no harm at all. He owed them zero sympathy.

So, he feeds into his curiosity, and while he knows the frantic sounds of struggle and wet slapping is most likely a large fish having gone too far inland, he can't help but be a little hopeful that his debt might be toast if this _is_ what he thinks it could possibly be.

Eren steps away from the lifeboats and over towards the tidepools, his boots digging into the sand as he strolls around burning wreckage. The land gets much more rocky here, and has a lot of little alcoves for things from the open ocean to swim around in during high tide. As he slowly climbs his way over the hill of rough, slippery rock, the noise of his men bickering drowns out, and he tunes in to the sound of the creature.

It’s louder now, closer. The creature is panting, making little grunts and noises of strain but trying to be quiet about it, growing tired with its efforts, yet it stubbornly persists as the watery sounds of struggle never cease. Fishes don't pant, nor grunt, and sea otters never get as big as this creature sounds. Eren’s disbelieving heart leaps as the impossible seems more and more possible, and he speeds up, eager to see. It's _just_ over this rise of rock, it's right _there_ , just a little further, right there, right there, right _here_ —

Eren’s eyes widen, his mouth falls open silently, and the creature, having seen him looming above, goes still in fright.

_It's a merman._

Eren's only ever seen them dead, where even then, their beauty is incredible. But now, here is an alive, breathing, merman, and he's _breathtaking_. Pretty, whiskey eyes stare up at him, wide and wet with terror, shiny like moonlight on the ocean. His skin is pale, pulled over the frame of his slender upper body tightly, but still looks soft and supple. His facial features are sharp, made sharper by his terrified expression, wet eyelashes clumping together and thin, pale pink lips falling open just slightly. He’s in the shallow waters of this particular tidepool, with the water lapping at his body, which lays only partially submerged.

The poor thing is trapped under a huge, heavy wooden support beam, which is splintery and smoking a little bit on the end that isn't in the water. It’s across the middle of his tail, which is a shimmery blue color, with the pectoral fins, caudal fins and dorsal spines being a bright, brilliant red. The merman doesn't dare move now, frozen like Eren had been when Levi pressed a gun to his temple, and he almost feels bad for the pretty little monster.

A wicked, easy grin curls across his face, and his eyes go half-lidded. This right here, is the answer to Eren’s debt. In a smooth, velvety tone, he coos down at the merman, “Well hello there, beautiful.”

The merman appears to shake himself out of his paralysis, blinking. His hands are paused on the beam where they had previously been pushing with all his might; Eren isn’t sure if they’re embedded in splinters. Quietly, the merman croaks, “Leave me alone.”

There’s a little bit of fire behind the words, a little bit of bite, but ultimately it’s a shaky, fearful, _meek_ attempt at sounding intimidating. Cute _._

“ _Aw_ , and leave you here all stuck? Don’t you want some _help_ ?” Eren teases, his voice _dripping_ with saccharine malice.

The merman begins trembling. “ _No!_ ” He shouts, his low, boyish voice cracking and echoing over the rocks, and the colors of his tail flash brighter shades. Eren tuts in disapproval.

“Oh, why’d you shout like that? The whole island’s heard you now.”

The pretty, feisty face below him pales immediately in realization, and his tail dulls a bit. Interesting.

Obviously, this merman knows what’s in store for him, what his fate will be. And yet, he breaks eye contact and fiercely resumes pushing at the beam, the free portion of tail whipping around in the water and his teeth clenched, although he’s much more desperate now. Eren likes persistence; he himself is notoriously persistent. Though it’s especially entertaining this time, for there’s no way out for this little sea beast. Eren’s simply playing with his food.

He leisurely strolls down a few steps of rock, coming closer, but not close enough for the merman to grab him with those long, spindly fingers of his. The merman doesn’t even attempt to do so, only pushes harder, his tail flashing brightly. Eren thinks he sees tears forming in those whiskey eyes.

“There’s no use struggling, you know.” The pirate captain hums. “You’re only tiring yourself out. ‘S not how _I’d_ want to spend my last moments, _mm-mm_.”

There’s an electricity in his veins, a strong sense of _power_ coursing through his body. His first time getting a real, good look at an alive mermaid or merman, and it’s _his_.

The merman isn’t responding, only continues on with his _laughable_ , frantic struggling, sloshing around the shallow water he's laying in. So, Eren continues feeding the building fire in his gut.

“You ought’a stop that. Damaged merchandise isn’t worth as much. You’ll cover everything I owe _plus_ extra, even if a bit bruised, but I’d still like the _whole_ deal—”

“I’m _not_ merchandise!” The merman shrieks, slamming his hands against the beam—then quickly yanking them to his chest with a pained whimper, curling his upper half up in the shallow waters. There’s a sizeable splinter in one of his palms.

At that, Eren can’t help but let out a barking peel of laughter, stopping in his tracks around the merman.

Meanwhile, his crew, who’d been loading their stolen loot into the lifeboats, curiously go over to see what their captain is so busy losing his shit over. They climb up the slippery rocks the same as Eren did, and their captain cackles on. Upon rounding the top of the tidepool, many have the same initial reaction to the sight of a live merman as Eren did—gasping, then grinning down at the pinned answer to their captain’s debt.

The merman looks around in terror as the grimy, gap-toothed, smirking faces multiply above him, and he knows the chances of him ever getting to see the light of another day are slim. But he can't give up that easily, he _can't_ , he _won't_.

“Well, well, lookie ‘ere!” One pirate spits.

“Aye say, thas’ a darn purty fish if _aye_ ever seen ‘un!” Another one taunts.

“Yur gonna make us one _fine_ sum ‘a money!” A third snickers.

The merman curls his lips back over his gums and _hisses_ at them, the noise rough and grating and entirely inhuman through the smoky night air, tail flashing the brightest it possibly can. A few men jump, before they all devolve into rolling bouts of hysterics. The merman, distraught and humiliated, doesn’t know what else to do.

Merfolk only have human teeth and ears, and the only thing that sets their upper half apart from actual humans visually, is their third eyelids and the clan tattoos that they all have, which binds a mermaid or merman to a tribe. This merman’s clan tattoo isn’t visible from the position he lays in, if he even has one, so all his upper half has to show for is a clear, sideways, third eyelid. That's it, so the merman’s hiss, while it sounded pretty damn terrifying, is nothing with it's human teeth and ears.

A few of the pirates let out little hisses of their own, mocking him in between their hoots of laughter. Once again, the merman’s tail goes dull, and he fights to not let any tears fall, for it would only disgrace him further.

“Alright, alright, enough ‘a that.” Eren finally snaps, getting tired of their antics and wanting to get a move on. “Someone get a net! We'll set sail for Port Royal tonight.”

Pirates cheer and holler as a net is passed up the ranks. Several men bend down, ready to lift up the beam that held the merman down when signaled to, and more pirates grab at the merman’s arms and hips, pinning him lest he try to swim back into the ocean once freed. With a throaty yell from Eren, the wooden support beam is lifted and tossed down into the rocky seas where it snaps on the spikes and coral before being swallowed by the dark, hungry waters.

The merman, despite knowing his efforts are virtually useless, still thrashes wildly in the tight hold of the many pirates, his tail vibrantly shimmering. “LEMME GO! I HAVEN'T DONE ANYTHING TO YOU—STOP! STOP, LEMME— _PLEASE!_ ”

There's a little tug on Eren’s steel heart when he hears the raw desperation in the creature’s voice, but it's not enough to make him want to do anything.

“Yur gon’a make fer sum’ _niiice_ fillets, boy!”

“Yeah, thas’ right—hey where's ‘at net?”

“Aye got ‘et!”

Eren’s stepped back a bit, arms crossed as he overlooks the handling of their catch. It helps him detach himself from the scene, to not go soft with emotion. So, he watches as the net is hastily thrown over the merman, how the pirates hustle to get it all the way around him in the water and secured at the top, and Eren’s about to give them the command to lift him up, when suddenly the merman shouts his last, bargaining bit of information, as his tail glimmers brilliantly: _“I KNOW WHERE POSEIDON’S TRIDENT IS!”_

_That_ makes everyone go _dead_ _silent._

Every pirate has heard of Poseidon’s Trident. It’s not something you let slip past your ears or talk about lightly; it’s a _legend._ The Trident was the weapon of choice for the god Poseidon, as the name suggests, and was crafted by three cyclops ages and ages ago. The thing contained magical power beyond anyone’s _dreams_ , and was said to be capable of causing earthquakes, hurricanes, typhoons, tsunamis, floods, storms, wrecking ships, summoning the kraken, and controlling all sea creatures… including merfolk.

It had fallen into the hands of a number of pirates in the last few decades, but that was before Eren even got to the Caribbean, before he was even a pirate. By the time Eren had sailed his merry way over from the Indian ocean on a stolen pirate ship in the hopes of finding a better, more bountiful and entertaining existence, the Trident had been lost to the seas. In the two years since Eren arrived in the Caribbean, there have been countless ventures from countless different sources, pirate and privateer alike, but none have ever come home with a _lick_ of success. So, everyone had come to believe that Poseidon’s Trident had been lost forever, locked away from mortal beings, never meant to be found again, yet here came along this _merman_ to tell them he _knew_ where the damn thing was.

Eren’s crew was looking to him to say the next words, so he slunk closer to their bound catch and spoke slowly through his teeth, “Poseidon’s Trident has been gone for _years_ ,”

Ocean glass green eyes met whiskey, one pair stern, the other begging for his life.

“Why should we—why should _I_ —believe that a _merman_ is willing to tell where a weapon that _controls merfolk_ is? How does that make sense in your head?” Eren spat the question out, filled with contempt for these _damned_ creatures.

The merman, to his credit, didn’t stutter, and kept his voice relatively level. “The Trident is hidden in Poseidon’s Tomb. Ever heard of that place, _pirate?_ ”

_No_ , he hadn’t. But that didn’t prove anything, for the creature could just be spewing fibs. Eren voiced that thought.

“But I’m not! Listen,” The merman gestured for Eren to come closer, and he begrudgingly knelt down with a grumble so the creature could whisper in his ear. A few of Eren’s crew stiffened, some muttering out little warnings that the merman may try to sing him to hypnosis, but Eren waved them off. If he went under, so what? The rest of them were here, and he trusted his crew.

The merman whispered into his ear, and Eren felt the hot breath against the side of his face. “Poseidon’s Tomb is an underwater grave off the coast of an island. I didn’t see any of your kind or your kind’s structures or buildings on it, so I don’t think you’ve discovered it yet. I know where the island is though—and I’ve _seen_ the Trident!”

Eren scowled and lifted his head from the merman’s tempting lips. Not bothering to whisper, he bellowed down, “If you _saw_ the damn thing, why didn’t you _take_ it?”

The merman held his gaze, face determined and grim. “Merfolk are _forbidden_ from weidling the Trident, we can’t even lay a finger on it if we tried. It’s meant to _control_ us, so if one of us got ahold of it and tried to use it, he’d only be controlling himself, which is nonsensical.”

Eren was silent, contemplative. What he was saying made sense, but the pirate was still hesitant to trust, still skeptical. He posed this next, testing question with a sneer, “So you’re willing to sell out your whole species just so you’ll live? How cowardly of you.”

At that, the merman looked down, but didn’t say anything.

Eren taunted some more, “You do realize with the Trident, I could command all of your kind right to us. We could wipe you all out if you led us to this thing, and I’d become the richest person on earth.”

Again, the merman said nothing, so either he was holding back information, or he was just that _stupidly_ stubborn. However, his tail wasn’t dull as expected, so who knew what was going on inside the creature’s mind? Merfolk were tricky, sly little bastards after all.

However, if what this one was saying was miraculously true about the Trident’s location, then Eren would have the key to treasure _no one else_ did. If one merman was enough to pay back his debt to Levi and then some, then the Trident was worth ten mermen, no, a _hundred_ . The Trident contained _unimaginable_ power, hell, Eren might not even need to _pay_ Levi back if he got it! He could just wreck the slimy bastard to shit!

The pirate captain’s mind churned with the possibilities, until one of his crew shouted out, “—but I heard that a _siren_ once wielded the Trident!”

Well, if _that_ wasn’t a huge contradiction to what the merman had just said.

The merman in question finally looked up, and snarled as if insulted, the blues and reds of his tail flickering. “ _Yes_ , one _did._ ”

“You just said you were _b_ _anned_ from using it!” Eren roared, and the merman flinched, but didn’t back down.

“ _Merfolk_ are banned from using it because it controls _merfolk_! Sirens can use it just as you can!”

Eren, and several others of his crew spat out snorts and chuckles at that. “ _Please_ ,” Eren taunted, anger subdued. “As if you aren’t the same damn thing!”

The merman looked _mortified_ , and Eren couldn’t help but laugh more as the creature clenched the net in his uninjured fist and shouted at him, “We’re not the same thing! Sirens are _vicious monsters_ and—”

“And so are _you_ !” Eren cackled, bending down to give the merman a condescending pat on the head through the netting. “But I’ll take your word, merman. If you’re lying about this _Poseidon’s Tomb_ , we’ll know when it’s not there, and sell you off to Port Royal, no problem.”

The merman sneered, and looked like he was going to continue on his silly little rant, but Eren didn’t give him the chance, instead commanding his crew to lift up the net and carry their merman to a lifeboat. They had a Trident to find. “Heave ‘em up, boys!”

However, upon raising their newly gained navigator out of the shallow tidepool, another problem arose.

The _second_ the last of the merman’s fins left the water, his entire tail started to melt away into a scaly sort of film. Eren and his crew watched in astonishment, the merman now suspended between two men in the net, as the blue tail and red fins dripped away like wax from a candle, but vaporized into thin air instead of forming a fleshy puddle, to reveal the actual meat of the creature’s tail had transformed into a pair of long, thin legs. The merman, who blushed and looked away as best he could from his predicament, was now as bare as the day he was born.

Several of Eren’s more rowdy, fowl-minded crewmembers let out catcalls, whistles and boisterous yells, but the pirate captain wasn’t so amused. “Set him down,” He muttered, rushing to shrug off his coat, and throw it at one of his pirates, who caught the item with a noise of surprise.

As Eren hastily slipped his already untied, off-white blouse over his head, taking care to not not catch them on his earrings. His men obediently lowered the merman to the rocky ground and freed him from the net, where he curled up in a last-stitch effort to preserve his dignity. Eren knelt down on one knee beside the merman and threw his shirt over the his head, which received ‘boos’ and noises of discontent from his crew, but with a single, tooth-filled snarl, they were quieted. The merman in question slowly, with a little bit of silent confusion, slithered his arms through the sleeves, then wrapped his arms around his knees once more, his splintered hand curled up. He didn’t say thank you, and kept his gaze lowered.

Eren hadn't really thought before tossing his shirt over the naked merman, it'd just been a spur of the moment action. Probably out of pity, he figured, for the merman had made a pretty pathetic sight, curling up in defeat instead of continuing to fight back. It took the fun out of the whole thing.

“I’ll get you some trousers on the ship.” Eren informed him, his voice detached and authoritative. He stood up once again, and gruffly commanded, “Get up!”

The merman blinked, before moving shakily to try and push himself to his feet with his unscathed hand, but was visibly unsure of _how_ to even accomplish such a task. Eren and his crew watched as the merman’s legs trembled like that of a newborn fawn, his ass not even a smidge off the rocky ground. Eren wondered if this was his first time even having legs, and again, he felt pity for the monster.

Sighing, he knelt back down to roughly snatch the struggling creature into his arms, one under his clothed back and one under his thin knees. Eren knew his shirt was probably hanging off the merman in ways that granted his crew an eyeful, and shifted a little to grab the ends of his shirt and pull it up, over his bare ass. Again, just out of pity.

The creature looped a begrudging arm around Eren’s neck for support, having probably never been carried before either. The merman stared down at his thinly-clothed lap, refusing to make eye contact with anyone, and with that, Eren barked at his crew to get their asses back to the lifeboats. All of them, even the rowdy ones who raked their beastly, dark eyes over the merman’s body with hunger, began their short trek back onto the beach.

Eren himself stumbled down off the rocks after his men, the one pirate still clutching to his red coat following at his heels. Several lifeboats had already been pushed into the shallow waves, and its occupants steadily rowing back towards the lit figure of Maria’s Revenge. Eren approached the very boat he’d ducked under just minutes before, and lowered the merman onto one of the seats. The merman, still, kept his eyes trained on no one, and clutched the fabric around him with limp, unfeeling fingers. He didn’t have the leg control to jump out of the boat and into the ocean if he tried, so Eren felt no worry in leaving him unbound.

“Cap’n, sur,” Came a surly voice from behind him.

The Caribbean night wind sent a chill over Eren’s now bare torso, rustling his gold earrings as he turned to face the two men who’d set off the explosion in the first place. Immediately, Eren scowled in distaste.

One of them spoke bravely, _stupidly_. “Cap’n, since we uh, ye know, technic’ly ‘elped wif yew catchin’ the merman ‘n all, could yew, mebbe, uh, spare us th’ lashin’s?”

The other one nodded frantically with the words of his buddy.

Eren, although several inches shorter than most of his men, practically _growled_ at them for even _suggesting_ such a thing. In a low, gravely tone, he spat, “You _morons_ could’ve killed me, and many others tonight. One merman getting trapped _by chance_ doesn’t excuse that behavior. You’re getting fifty lashings each, just as you deserve.”

Eren waited a second to see if they’d fight back or object, but knowing their pirate captain was much, _much_ tougher than his stature, the two men bowed their heads.

“Yus’ sur.”, “Yis sir.”

With a curt nod, Eren turned back and pushed his lifeboat into the waves, before wadding up to his knees and leaping in. There were two or three more boats behind him, so his coat carrier and the two men weren’t being marooned.

With the key to Eren’s unfathomable fortune seated in the lifeboat, the pirate captain silently began rowing back to his ship. Upon reaching Maria’s Revenge and hoisting everything up into the ship, Eren once again carried their merman as he clambered onto the dry, sturdy floorboards of the deck. Men were already scuttling about, trying to pipeline all their stolen loot down into the storage compartments below, so Eren wasted no time in striding to the navigation room.

The merman looked around in silent curiosity as Eren carried them below deck, heading through the dim, narrow, lantern-lit hallway towards the stern, his splintered hand still curled against his chest. Eren, eager to berid himself of the unexplained nausea swirling in the pit of his stomach, shoved his shoulder into the door of the navigation room and plowed inside, hastily plopping the merman down on a chair conveniently beside the large table in the center of the room, with maps upon maps sprawled over it.

“Alright, merman,” Eren spat, as the pirate carrying his coat shuffled in after them. Eren paused to order he take the item to his room, the captain’s chambers, then turned his frown back to the seated merman. “Point out your ‘Poseidon’s Tomb’.”

The creature’s sharp whiskey eyes roved over the biggest map, the one currently in use, and Eren could see his eyebrows furrowing in confusion and— _shit_ , he probably didn't know how to _read_ , much less understand a map from _bird’s eye view_.

“I can't.” Came the quiet admission, and Eren let out an irritated groan. “I only know _underwater_ landmarks, and I can't read your ugly _human_ language.”

A few of Eren’s men had been in the room, stowing away some scrolls, books, and other maps they'd stolen from the coastal Mexican town. All turned at the mouthy, hot-headed merman’s insult, ready to defend their captain’s honor, but Eren waved a hand before any could make a peep, ushering his rough, rude, and equally illiterate crew members out of the room.

There were only a handful of men on board that could read, the ones who'd received an education before starting their life as a pirate, or the ones who'd taken care to teach themself. Eren was the former, having been the son of a noble for the first two decades of his life in the Ottoman Empire. Evidently, two decades of wearing stiff collars buttoned all the way up to choke him with ideals and expectations had been an elite form of torture for Eren, who knew he desired a much different sort of life.

However, being in the heart of one of the biggest, most successful modern Empires which resided in close proximity to monuments of learning and education, combined with his higher class, meant that he had access to all the best information a young Turkish boy could possibly have. Now, was Eren a scholar? No. But, he could read and write in a decent handful of languages, he had a good understanding of the sciences, mathematics and astronomy, and was well-read in history and literature. If there was anyone on Maria’s Revenge who was going to aid a sea creature in deciphering a map, it was him.

However, it was still a _merman_ . Hating every second he had to bend down to this horrid creature’s aid, Eren moved to lean over the merman and point out where they were on the map.   
“We’re right here, got that? In this cove. Try and remember what that uncharted island of yours looked like. Were there any other islands nearby? Something?”

The merman paused for a moment, trying to search his memory for anything.

“ _Tonight,_ merman.” Eren spat through clenched teeth. “We’re either cashing in you or the Trident, so think faster.”

Finally, the merman reacted to Eren’s taunting again, and whipped his head around to glare daggers at the pirate captain, his eyes nothing but beady little slits. “I’ll take as much time as I want, _pirate_ . After all, _I’m_ the only one who knows about it. What, are you _scared_ someone else’ll get to it first?”

Eren leaned closer, with a gaze sharp to match the merman’s. “As a matter of fact, _yes_ , I am.”

Another pause, as they both tried to dare the other to look away first, then another question entered Eren’s mind. “How’d you come across it anyway? What’s your story there, eh?”

The merman’s tongue flicked out to wet his lips before speaking, his thin eyebrows still scowling something fierce. “Why should I tell you that?”

“So I know you’re not sending us on some bullshit mission for nothing.”

“Guess you’ll have to take that gamble, huh?”

Eren’s hand lashed out to snatch the merman’s shirt— _his_ shirt—and tug the merman up a bit in his seat, and his thin legs that he still had no control over hung limply below.

“Listen here,” Eren spat, voice low and dripping with fury. “I’ve had my fair share of fights in my life and I can tell you right now, the _only_ reason I won’t slug that pretty mug of yours across this floor is because of your price tag. But you’re making that _very_ fucking hard, merman.”

Eren gave the merman, whose spindly fingers were wrapped around Eren’s wrist like vices, a firm shake with the fist wrapped in shirt material. “You’re on a ship of _stupid-shit_ humans who’d _gladly_ mess you up if given the chance, and the only thing stopping them from tearing you limb from limb is _me_ . You’re in the middle of a shark den, _princess_. Got it?”

Seeing fear flash behind the merman’s tough guy facade gave Eren enough satisfaction to let go of the shirt, and let the merman drop down onto the seat again. The merman looked down at the map, silent docile once more. Good.

Eren resumed his position, leaning over the map. He hears the merman swallow once, then mutter, “There were no other islands around it for miles. It’s small.”

“How small?”

“Small enough to swim around in a little over an hour.”

They were getting somewhere, finally. Eren roved his eyes over their map, which displayed the whole of the Caribbean, the Gulf of Mexico, Central America, a sliver of the top of South America, and a little bit of Florida. They’d need to narrow it down.

“When I swam away from it, I was swimming for a while before I saw another island.”

Eren, still trying to cool the adrenaline coursing through his veins from their little yelling match, looked at any areas of wide ocean on the map. “What island did you see?”

The merman stopped to think, then muttered, “It… it was bigger. It had your kind on it, not a whole lot, more like a little pod.”

Eren resisted the urge to tilt his head back and cackle at the word ‘pod’. Instead, he pressed further, “Was there a mountain on that island? A volcano?”

Eren is now, in his head, slotting through all islands he knows to have a small scattering of people on it.

“There was a cliff face.”

Oh?

“A cliff face?” Eren parroted, peering down at the hunched over figure of the merman. The air in the navigation room was drafty and laden with the odor of men, but it wasn't cold. Still, the merman clutched Eren’s shirt around him as if he were in the middle of a blizzard.

“Yes,” He answered, quietly staring at the map. “It had a skull carved into it.”

“Dead Man’s Chest!” Eren yells in eureka, causing the merman to jump (to the best of his abilities) in his seat.

It’s the only island on which pirates are buried. Every pirate knows about it, has been on it, for it's one of the only islands the pirate king forbids any fighting on. Rival captains and crews alike can unite in mourning their dead on this island, where gravestones litter the island. Not a scrap of treasure is buried here, nor any buildings aside from the grave keeper’s houses. It's probably the only island belonging to pirates that privateers leave alone, as they know it's not the place of wrongdoing, nor the place to start a destructive fight.

So, the uncharted island is near Dead Man’s Chest. “In what direction were you swimming?” Eren inquired, his emerald eyes trained on the little lopsided circle representing Dead Man’s Chest on the map. Dead Man’s Chest has a little archipelago trickling behind it to the south west, leaving the wide berth of sea to its north east side open to the possibility of an uncharted island.

“Uh…” The merman mumbled, eyes squinting in thought. Christ, did he even know the cardinal directions?

“I was swimming at night… and when I saw… when I saw Dead Man’s Chest…”

Eren can’t help but lean closer, anticipation building in him. “Yeah?”

The merman’s whiskey eyes flick to him for a second, then back down. “There was—the sun was rising behind it—”

Eren interrupts in his excitement, “So you were heading east, which means—!!” He slaps his hands down on the table triumphantly. “The west of Dead Man’s Chest! Oh, that's good enough! HEY!”

Eren bounds to the door, and flings it open so he can yell down the corridor. The merman winces at the noise all the while.

“AYE LADS! WE'RE HEADIN’ WEST OF DEAD MAN’S CHEST! LET'S GET A MOVE ON!”

Ambiguous cries of acknowledgment and cheer ring out after that, and Eren turns back around, satisfied. He punches the air, “Oh, Poseidon’s Trident, here I come!”

**Author's Note:**

> Again, this is a WIP! Please leave comments! Tell me what you thought, how you feel, critique, etc


End file.
